Another dreamlike, darkly prophetic meditation on the savagery of South African political history, and on the impossibility of historical knowledge in general, very much in the manner of Nicol's remarkable first novel, The Powers That Be (1989). If this were an ordinary novel, you'd say that it revolved around the conflict between two haunted, obsessive men. Charismatic self- ordained holy man Enoch Mistas has left his backwoods village, chained a Bible to his wrist, and enlisted a strangely devoted following of relatives, travelers, soothsayers, and criminals as he spreads his gospel of rebellion against the repressive regime. The current unnamed president of that regime—armed even before Mistas is born with apocalyptic warnings by the prophetess Maria of his power—sends Field Marshal Hedley Goodman and his detachment of the Cape Royal Fusiliers into the backcountry to put down the rebellion, leading to a long- portended confrontation. But Nicol's fondness for the fairy-tale techniques of magic realism not only heads off any simple resolution of this conflict but keeps the whole story atwitter in fantastic detail—from the tale of Mistas's birth (he's begotten by a fatally plague-stricken stranger on Ma-Fatsoen, a woman whose husband, Fat Eddie, has died after giving her six daughters, and grows up as the dislikable sole hope of his parched village) to the romance of his betrothed (his bride arrives riding an ostrich with his lieutenant Mximba). And fabulous tales everywhere substitute for truth, whether the president is struggling to make sense of Maria's prophecies, or Fat Eddie is wooing Ma-Fatsoen with stories that turn out to be a substitute for sex, or Pastor Melksop is unwittingly turning Mistas into a bullying messiah by the tales he tells. Strange and wonderful stories, all of them; if this lacks the cumulative power of Nicol's extraordinary debut, it still leaves you hungry for more from this gifted writer.
Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-41682-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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